PowerPoint’s Clip Organizer is one of those features in PowerPoint that’s been there for years and gets very little use. However, it’s also one of the most powerful time-saving features in PowerPoint, especially if you work with a lot of custom graphics.
In today’s post, we’ll explore how to use the clip organizer. This comes in handy if you download and customize lots of clip art. Or if you take advantage of ...
Many of us take a Field of Dreams approach to elearning. If we build it, they will learn. But the reality is that elearning is just an event in the timeline of learning and not the entire learning process. And in some ways, the elearning course is an intrusion on the person’s natural learning process. Because of this, we want to make sure that the investment we make in elearning produces the results we ...
5 E-Learning Design Ideas I Got While Traveling
February 22nd, 2011
When it comes to graphic design, it’s important to continually find inspiration from other sources. One of the main reasons for this is because over time, you develop a distinct visual style. And when you’re the only one working on your elearning courses, eventually they all start to look the same.
I’ve discussed this in previous posts:
- Here’s How to Get past a Screen Full of Bullet Points
- Inspiring Designs to Keep Your E-Learning Courses Looking Fresh
E-Learning & Instructional Design 101
February 15th, 2011
There’s a lot of debate about instructional design and whether or not you need a formal education to create effective elearning. We looked at that in a previous post (which includes some good discussion in the comments section).
Today I want to explore some elements of instructional design and why it’s important when building an elearning course.
Learning Happens
I’ve been in the training industry for over twenty years. And sometimes we act as if people would just sit around ...
Do You Need An Instructional Design Degree?
February 8th, 2011
Just finished back-to-back conferences in San Jose and San Diego. As always, it’s fun getting to meet the blog readers and Articulate customers. Many of them are working with limited resources and it’s interesting to see how they approach their work. I also get lots of good questions.
One of the most frequent questions asked is whether or not they need instructional design degrees. I get this question quite a bit and it seems I’m getting it more frequently.
If I hire someone, I put ...
How to Be Successful at Rapid E-Learning
February 1st, 2011
Here’s what I find typical of people who do rapid elearning. Their organization needs to take existing content (usually a bunch of PowerPoint files) and get it online as soon as possible. So they buy an authoring tool and quickly convert the content.
Once it’s online, they realize that many of the courses look like PowerPoint slides. So they start focusing on how to make the screens look better. Voila! In no time at all, they’ve got great looking courses.
The more courses ...
Help Your Client See E-Learning from a Different Perspective
January 25th, 2011
Most people only see linear, click-and-read elearning courses. So when it comes time to build their own courses, they tend to build what they’ve seen before. The same goes for your clients or subject matter experts. They tend to expect something similar to what they’re used to seeing.
There are many times when a linear, click-and-read course is appropriate. So this isn’t a rant against click-and-read courses. However, there are also plenty of times, where a click-and-read course isn’t the best ...
A Free Tool & Free Graphics to Simplify Your E-Learning Course Design
January 18th, 2011
Most people I talk to have limited graphic design skills and they don’t usually have access to a graphic designer. This wouldn’t be a problem if they could hire a graphic designer, but they usually can’t do that either since they have no money.
Considering this, the goal is to find as many free or low cost graphic design solutions as possible. In today’s post, we’ll look at a free application that can easily be used for your elearning design and ...
Subject matter experts know their subject matter. That’s why they’re called experts. But they don’t always know how best to teach what they know, especially when it comes to elearning.
Subject matter experts offer a lot of value when it comes to building your elearning courses. They have invested lots of time in developing their expertise so they’re able to touch on nuances that go beyond just information. This can be critical in your course design.
However, there are some challenges when working with experts. Often they’re so far ...
Your Favorite Rapid E-Learning Posts of 2010
January 4th, 2011
2010 flashed by me so fast I was worried that if I stuck my arm out it would become fossilized. Despite that it was a great year of traveling around and getting to meet many of you at conferences and informal jam sessions. I also got to see parts of the country I hadn’t seen before.
2011 is going to be an exciting year. We at Articulate have some cool things planned. And as far as conferences, I’ll be at the usual ones ...
More Than 100 PowerPoint Tutorials & a Free Template
December 28th, 2010
With as many PowerPoint questions that I get, it’s a good thing that over the past year or so the elearning community has created about 300 PowerPoint tutorials. For this post, I decided to pull a bunch of them together so that you have them in one easy list.
I also included a free PowerPoint elearning template to celebrate the holidays and a great ...
How to Design An Elearning Course on a Budget
December 21st, 2010
The past few days I’ve been pulling some content together for a couple of workshops I’m doing at the ASTD TechKnowledge conference in San Jose. The workshops are for those who are just getting started with the Articulate tools.
I only have about 75 minutes for each workshop, so I am pre-building most of the course that we’ll use for a few practice activities. The participants will get all of the assets and some job aids to help them ...
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